Marred by one of his biggest slumps in a Breakers – or Artists – uniform, McInerny collected two base hits against Godinez as Laguna Beach improved to 5-0 in the Orange Coast League following a 16-0 victory April 2. Sometimes playing league opponents can boost morale like that.

Before his two hits, McInerny had been hitless in his previous four games, but the junior understands and acknowledges that he is playing a game that sees more failure than success from an offensive standpoint, and he’s just fine with that.

“Baseball is such a tough sport; it’s a game of failure,” McInerny said. “But if you have your guys behind you, they’ll pick you up every time, and they’re doing that.”

His mindset is necessary for a team that became much younger this year after last year’s semifinal run in the CIF-SS Division 4 playoffs.

The third-year starting catcher works with a pitching staff that includes just two seniors this year. Of the team’s 81 innings pitched, those two seniors have contributed just 81/3 of them through 12 games.

In addition, McInerny has stepped in to help the pitching staff and currently posts a 3-0 record on the mound in three starts.

“He knows our pitchers extremely well, and he’s a fantastic catcher,” Breakers coach Mike Bair said. “His leadership, not only by his actions and the way he plays, but vocally, is so important. He really is the nuts and bolts of the team.”

McInerny is a second-generation ballplayer. His father, Dan, played for three minor league systems. He is the younger of Dan’s two sons, and older brother Robbie followed in a family tradition by heading to Cal after playing baseball at Laguna Beach. Both father and grandfather also have attended college in Berkeley.

Dan McInerny reached the minors, playing baseball in the Orioles, Indians and Athletics farm systems.

Younger brother Will McInerny is humble, yet hungry. A dreamer, yet realistic. Naturally, every ballplayer imagines himself hitting over .300 and being the offensive star.

Will McInerny accepts those failures. He knows they’re bound to happen at some point, but his way of dealing with those pitfalls is exemplary.

“If you just look for results all the time, you’re not going to get them,” he said. “It’s a process where you have to accept failure. You have to learn to love the grind in order to see the results. I’m happy to be working with my guys and winning.”

The McInerny brothers have always played sports but followed in their father’s footsteps with their love for baseball. Growing up, the two would constantly engage in backyard baseball battles, often pleading for one more inning as the sun began to set.

Rivals in the backyard, they were each other’s biggest fans at the ballpark.

Will McInerny would watch older brother, Robbie, play at Riddle field and think to himself, “I want to do that.”

Soon enough, he did. One of Will McInerny’s favorite memories occurred when the two took home run derby trophies in back-to-back years.

“We’re extremely close; we talk every day,” Will McInerny said. “Growing up, it was typical backyard baseball and we’ve had some vicious rivalries, but we’ve managed to keep the love.”

His biggest goal upon entering high school was to play one season with his brother, but Robbie was a senior when Will entered high school as a freshman, so achieving that goal seemed unlikely.

Then the injuries occurred. Will McInerny was thrust into the starting catcher’s role after the varsity team’s first two options went down with injuries. Some nerves consumed the younger brother early on.

“He was forced to catch his freshman year, and he’s never left that spot, and you could tell through those first few innings, he was a little fearful,” Bair said. “We had him starting JV that year and we had to call him up. He got better inning by inning. He’s one of those kids that wants to be good, be professional, and he works so hard.”

His mental toughness took a hit that season. Bair often found himself having to fill McInerny’s spot in the lineup with a designated hitter because of McInerny’s frustration with himself at the plate. Though he played 21 games, McInerny only had 30 plate appearances and hit .286.

But behind the plate, he filled in nicely. The pitching staff posted a 1.57 earned run average that season and the Breakers made it to the second round of the CIF-SS Division 4 playoffs.

After that season, he realized that failure happens more often than not. He made vast improvement at the plate his sophomore year while maintaining the same success with his pitchers behind the plate.

The Breakers made the semifinals, falling to Torrance in extra innings, 3-2.

“We had big seniors who were great leaders, and he really stepped into that role this year,” teammate Callan Cochran said. “He plays with more passion and heart than anyone I’ve ever played with.”

This season, in an attempt to be more prepared for postseason play, Bair ramped up the preseason schedule with tougher teams in the Newport Elks Tournament and the Ryan Lemmon Tournament, which ended up this week.

For someone like Will McInerny, those challenges may have sparked anxiety a couple years ago, but not this year.

He’s the team’s rock, or as he called it, the “quarterback behind the plate.” The words coming from behind the plate have specific meaning; they aren’t shouted just so he can be heard. His teammates couldn’t appreciate him more for it.

“He thinks before he speaks, and it’s a huge help having him back there,” Cochran said. “He navigates the entire field, and he’s just a very knowledgeable kid in the sport of baseball.”

With its win over Godinez, Laguna Beach extended its Orange Coast League winning streak to 39 games, and Will McInerny has been around for all but four of them. The county record for a league streak is 45, set by La Quinta of Westminster from 2005 to 2008.

After the April 2 game, Will McInerny was all smiles. Though he can easily shrug off a slump these days, it’s still nice to actually break it, but he knows that had he not recorded a hit that day, his team still got the win and his more youthful teammates can pick him up.

Clearly, he does the same for them, regardless of his personal success rate. Colleges have been taking notice, and he has been in talks with Pac-12 schools including Stanford and Cal.

“I just have to keep working hard, because nothing in life comes easy,” Will McInerny said. “I’m just going to keep at it.”

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